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Early-onset sepsis remains a common diagnosis in the NICU and presents challenges for clinicians, according to a new clinical report on managing suspected cases of the condition. The report, published in Pediatrics, said major issues are identifying high-risk neonates and starting treatment; determining which infants do not require treatment; and ending antimicrobial therapy after sepsis is found to be unlikely.

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Early-onset sepsis in newborns was associated with elevated levels of acute phase reactants in umbilical cord blood, according to research presented at the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Research Conference. Compared with infants without sepsis or with late-onset sepsis, neonates with early-onset sepsis had greater levels of ferritin, haptoglobin, serum amyloid A, serum amyloid P and C-reactive protein.

A study in the journal Pediatrics found that a revised local algorithm for evaluating early-onset sepsis based on the 2010 guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowered costs and the frequency of sepsis evaluation among newborns from 126 per 1,000 live births to 68 per 1,000 live births. The decrease was attributed partly to the inclusion of group B streptococcus prophylaxis treatment.

Standard culturing used in low birth-weight babies with early-onset sepsis to detect bacterial infections failed to spot more than 20 bacterial species, a study showed. The findings, published in the journal PLoS One, suggest the need to conduct several tests among such newborns to detect infections missed by standard exams.

A study of about 400,000 newborns found the risk of early-onset sepsis was tied to group B streptococci in full-term infants and E. coli in premature babies. Researchers reported in Pediatrics that the overall rate of sepsis was 0.98 per 1,000 live births.

An international study of an inherited form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease might offer an ideal way for drugmakers to test their treatments earlier, researchers said. Scientists are in talks with companies "to see what drugs are going to be available, what will the properties be, how they can be implemented."